Summer Lecture Series
by JosieBklyn
Summary: Severus Snape is invited to conduct a summer lecture series at an American Wizarding school. Hermione audits because of course she does.


A tiny black owl flew into the teacher's staff room and landed next to Severus Snape as he sipped his tea. He snapped up the note and fed the bird a piece of biscuit. The bird nuzzled the professor's hand and flew off. "American post." he murmured to no one in particular as he tore open the envelope.

"Anything interesting?" Minerva McGonagall asked.

Severus looked over the letter with interest. "Apparently I've been invited to "Bring a Death Eater to Work Day".

"Excuse me?"

"I have an acquaintance at Salem Academy and he'd like me to do a summer lecture series on the Second Wizarding War for his Dark Arts Defense curriculum."

"Who's your friend?"  
"Mike Callahan, he is the Dean of Students there. He's got students there that are studying modern history and thinks my unique situation may pique their interest. I may seriously consider it. It's two months in the summer and I'd have time to do what is necessary before classes start. Besides, I'd like to do some research on American herbology and potions. There is quite a bit of research on integrating Wizarding herbology and Native American ethnobotany, and I'd like to learn more."

"I'm sure fun will be had by all," Minerva groaned. "I'm spending my summer on a proper holiday."

Hermione stared at her chart for her summer schedule and squinted. No white space, good, she thought. If everything went according to plan, she could graduate from Salem Academy with a double Master's degree in Transfiguration and Arithmancy by the spring. As tempting as it was for her to use a time turner again, it would be an incredibly bad idea, so summer classes were her other viable option. Ron and Harry went spare when she told them of her plans, apparently, summer and school were mutually exclusive events. Since there was nothing to be had in Scotland or the UK for advanced study, she decided to try the American life to further her education. After some cultural adjustment, she flourished in her new environment. American education was completely different, it was more flexible and she took full advantage of the fast track offerings. It took her months to resign herself to the fact that she couldn't major in _everything._

A tall girl slid next to Hermione's seat in the cafeteria.

"Hey, Hermione, have you registered for your summer classes? One of your old professors from Hogwarts is going to be here as a guest lecturer."

"Who is it?"

"Something Snape, I forget."

"Severus. Potions Master, Order of Merlin First Class. Death Eater. Pain in my grade point average. You're taking more potions?"

"He's lecturing on the Second Wizarding War, actually. Are you taking it?"

"I'm not taking his _lecture_," she sneered. "I was there, remember?"

"Oh, right," she sheepishly replied. "But still, everyone I ever see from Hogwarts is so advanced in potions, you get to do things we aren't even allowed to do here. Too dangerous they say. You guys are always so prepared. I wish I could have..."

Hermione rolled her eyes as she interrupted. "I know, I know. I did learn a lot, but he was a really impossible teacher. I had to work like a house-elf to even get a decent grade. He seemed like he really hated teaching, but looking back, I was a pain, so maybe we had it coming a little. And whatever he did, it works. We didn't have any major problems in the class, even with the advanced potions. We tried to kill each other and ourselves but we failed. I think he was trying to get us ready for what was to come. Life is not always a nice teacher either." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This opportunity would not come again, she had to make it happen. Maybe she could sit in on the lectures at least.

"Dr. Callahan, what do you hope to accomplish with this class? Historical perspective? Psychological motivations? The other side of the story? What's your motivation?" Severus Snape sat on the receiving end of a very ornate cherry desk, across from the Dean of Students for Salem Academy.

"You are a primary source of information about the Wizarding Wars and we are honored to have you consider the offer to lecture this summer. Our only goal is to have students understand how events unfolded and perhaps some motivations as you mentioned," replied Dr. Callahan.

"How many students?"

"As many as we can, we may move you to the history lecture hall, we anticipate this to be a very popular course. No papers or testing unless you'd like to do so."

"If this lecture class is to be for credit, I'll want student evaluation. I don't want any ghost students. Can we cap at 150 students?"

"Certainly, as you wish. I'd like to look over your syllabus for the class, of course, and we deeply appreciate your efforts."

"For evaluation, I plan a pre-term essay, a midterm essay, and a final paper. No tests."

"That's a lot of parchment to grade," Callahan commented.

Snape glared. "Ask anyone who has been in my tutelage, I do not give an easy class."

"That reminds me," Callahan interjected. "We do have one of your former students graduating next spring, she has a double major. Subjects escape me at the moment..." he trailed off.

"Let me guess, Hermione Granger."

"How did you know?"

"Swotty girl never changes. We don't have college-level wizarding education in the UK or Scotland. She needs school like she needs air." Snape remarked.

"I've heard she's very prepared for her classes and all the double major candidates are personally interviewed by the dean's office prior to enrollment in the program. I interviewed her myself."

"I'm sure she can handle it, she's practically a savant that way. Once Hogwarts let her have a time-turner but that was only for a brief time. She did very well for a major player in WizWar II. She didn't let her grades slip just because she was the brains behind the Golden Trio. Does she still use a color-coded schedule?"

"I believe so. Was she a good student in your classes?"

"Passable."

Callahan raised his eyebrows in surprise at the "passable" comment and wondered how academically rigorous this current events lecture would be for the students. Snape almost read his thoughts and remarked. "Don't worry, I'll make them earn their marks in a relatively painless manner."

"Great, we'll see you again soon, the first day of class is the last Monday in June. We have faculty housing available to you and since you are here less than 90 days, there is no visa requirement. Let us know when to expect you and we'll make sure your apartment is ready." Dr. Callahan rose from his chair and shook hands with Severus. "Thank you again, we are very excited to have you here with us."

As Severus entered the lecture hall, he scanned the room to see what type of students he would be communing with for the six week period. American students seemed to dominate, although there were some that sounded like Londoners and there was a bit of Spanish from somewhere in the room wafting through the air. Melting pot indeed. Dr. Callahan had gotten the large lecture hall from the history department and there were definitely more than 150 attendees in the room with the folded wooden chairs bolted to the floor. Striding to the front of the lecture hall, he tapped the podium with the baton from the bookrest and announced, "There is a notice at the door that room capacity is 200. As I do not wish to incur the wrath of your fire marshal, nor do I wish to conduct this class on a quidditch pitch, I respectfully request that those of you who are neither registered for this class nor faculty of Salem Academy please leave at this time. Per Dr. Callahan, there will be some recording of this series available on your school computers. I do not have details for this, only that it will be done.

"I will now call attendance, I would like to see for myself who will be attending so I may notice your absence when you partake too much in the summer festivities." He called from the list, one name at a time, and made notations as he saw each student.

"Granger, Hermione," he clipped.

"Present." Her hand shot up like a firstie.

"Any why praytell are you auditing a class for an event in which you were an active participant? I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we received matching medals."

"I hope to gain a different perspective from my own, sir."

"Indeed. Please see me after class regarding your _perspective_," Snape sneered.

Hermione straightened up in her seat and scribbled a note.

Snape continued with his roll call, then briefed the class on his agenda.

"I have been invited to speak to you these next six weeks on Wizarding War II and the Death Eater perspective specifically. We will briefly go over the initial events including Tom Riddle's background, rise to power, and his initial defeat. The balance of the series will include his return to power, Death Eater recruitment and management, the methods to his madness and Riddle's final defeat. We will discuss the Ministry of Magic's role in the war, and Harry Potter's as well. At the end of the series, you will understand the sequence of events and the motivations of the players involved. There is no required textbook for this class."

Snape snapped his wand at the wall behind him and these words appeared:

"**Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana, 19th Century Muggle philosopher. Write 700-1000 words on how this topic relates to what you expect from this lecture series.**

"Necessity is the mother of invention and I have invented a word count charm." He raised his eyebrows, looked directly at Hermione, then continued to address the group. "Please spare me your impressive displays of ineptitude and limit your pre-term paper to between 700 and 1000 words. As Shakespeare said, 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' I expect these essays Monday next. You are dismissed." The class filed out thru the lecture hall doors in the rear, mumbling.

Hermione remained in her seat.

Severus Snape looked just as intimidating in his American clothing as he did in the billowing robes when he crossed the room.

He straddled a chair in front of her and began to speak.

"I was invited here to lecture because I was a primary source of information for the war. You are as well, having traveled with The-Boy-Who-Amazingly-Continues-To-Live. If you are interested, I'd like you to speak to the group from your experience. I'm not sure what you are permitted to disclose, but they may relate well to a contemporary. All our efforts were important, even those of people closer to their age."

Hermione blinked in surprise at the suggestion, the fact that Snape was suggesting it, and that she had anything valuable to add to the discussion. Hermione, as a Gryffindor, failed miserably to hide her shock.

"I'm glad to help, and we haven't been told by the Ministry that any of the events are classified information. Obviously the boys aren't going to do anything as ambitious as writing a book, but in theory, they could have," Hermione noted.

"And you?"

"I'm living my life."

"Would the immediate plans for this "life" include a two-hour slot on my syllabus?" Severus inquired.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose you have to plan around this. I'd be honored to be included in your lecture."

"Very well. I'd like you to give me an outline of what you plan to present. Since you are auditing, you are not required to produce the essays, you can give this instead."

"I had planned to turn in the essays, actually."

"Of course you had. If you insist on doing so, I will provide feedback in lieu of a grade."

"Thank you, sir."

Severus rose from his seat and motioned to Hermione for permission to leave. He went to the podium to retrieve his papers and was ready to leave when he looked back to the sea of chairs. Hermione furiously scribbled notes on a muggle composition book about Harry, the Forest of Dean, and how she had no interest in ever camping again. Severus returned to Hermione's seat.

"I don't need the outline now, Miss Granger. Monday will be sufficient."

"Yes, sir."

Severus thought for a minute about his role in this lecture series in general, with Hermione in particular, and whether he wanted to downgrade to American level informality. "We do not need to be so formal here, the "sir" is a bit stilted in this venue."

"Are you going native?" Hermione smirked.

"Hardly. But there is a certain charm to the informal address policy here, even if it galls me to admit it. When in Rome..." he trailed off.

Hermione thought to herself, "_This is almost permission to be on a first-name basis."_ She bravely stuck out her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger, graduate student, but you may call me Hermione."

He put his hand in hers. "Severus," he announced. "I'm a priggish potions professor from England who is recoiling at the fact that he cannot stop the march to plebian familiarity."

"You just died inside a little bit, didn't you?"

Severus snorted.

"Well, one has to start somewhere," she commented as she turned to leave the room.

The week following, Hermione wrote up her synopsis of the last year at Hogwarts and the period of time that should have been her seventh year. Her childhood camping trip to the Forest of Dean was turned into a place to hide, cut off from the Wizarding world, where they cobbled together the plan for the Horcruxes and the hallows. Writing the story was like reliving it all over again, and once she started writing, the floodgates opened. Harry, Ron, the loneliness, the constant fear and perpetual responsibility, all spilled onto the parchment. Catharsis or therapy, pick one. At any rate, there were definitely more than two hours of material here, so she decided to ask Severus what parts she should emphasize and which to leave off.

When she presented the parchments to Severus, she told him that her notes needed editing.

"Edit out anything personal, first of all," he suggested.

"Personal?" she inquired.

"Stick to the main story for the class."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked.

"You spent months camping alone in the Forest of Dean with two teenage boys..." he trailed off his sentence knowingly.

"I'll have you know _nothing_ happened between us like that. I'm not even sure those two realize I'm female," she snapped. Her tone of voice was somewhere between shocked and shrill.

"Weasley #6 fancied you," Severus pointed out.

"I'm pretty sure if _Ron_ fancied me he'd have said so. He's Gryffindor. It would have been impulsive, poorly thought out and awkward but he would have done. They were out there trying to help defeat Riddle, not get some trim. I can't believe you! You still see us as children playing campout seeing if we can get away with something else behind your backs. Harry is like a brother to me and true, he would have been bollocks at being a chaperone but _nothing happened_ apart from us destroying some horcruxes and finding the hallows. We were _busy _trying to not get killed." At this point, Hermione was indignantly shouting. "And furthermore, I am still a virgin, not that it is any of your business. Stupid paternalism, why don't you do some chastity charm or something? I'm sure wizarding culture is really huge on making sure their little witches are..."

"Stop." Severus snapped. "Just stop. Breathe."

Hermione reflexively quieted to the "professor" tone of voice he used.

"First, I apologize for impugning your character. I incorrectly assumed that a modern thinking girl, well, did not value her virtue as is common in muggle culture. Secondly, there is no "chastity charm" as you so aptly described. Imagine how that would affect your schoolmates if sensitive medical information was available at the flick of a wand."

Hermione buried her head in her hands. She slid the parchment to him and said, "Do what you want. I am not involved anymore. I can't do this."

"We can talk about this another time when you have calmed down. I've apologized, that's all I can do. I truly regret my comments." He slid the parchment back.

Hermione flicked her wrist to the parchment she had written. "Incendio." It quickly went up in blue flames. "You're right, another time would be better. I haven't calmed down yet," she muttered as she hung her head and left.

Severus blinked, as she had torched her notes wandlessly. Clearly they had some catching up to do. "Reparo." He picked up her parchments and carried them back to his apartment.

As he looked over Hermione's notes, he saw the raw emotion build up as he got further into her side of the story. While he had plans to present his material with a certain clinical detachment, she had obviously planned to be a little more dramatic and emotional. He had to stop halfway thru her notes, at the part when Ron had returned and destroyed the Slytherin locket with the Sword of Gryffindor. Remembering the story from his own perspective, he was truly surprised that Ron and Harry both survived. Hermione and Harry needed Ron to help them with the wizarding cultural references for which they lacked knowledge. He regretted calling Ron "Weasley #6" to Hermione, but it was a mental slip, he did this as a mnemonic device to remember their names properly. Severus pondered how to obtain Hermione's forgiveness. A witch who could do a wandless incendio should not be trifled with. There was a certain attractiveness in a powerful witch. She was certainly not afraid of his reaction. He also thought he could get two lecture sessions out of her material instead of the one he had originally planned. More Harry Potter would be a popular decision for the syllabus and Dr. Callahan wouldn't have a problem with multiple resources. But how could he get Hermione to listen to his idea?

Hermione was livid as she stormed around her dorm room ranting about how ungrateful he was, how she was doing this as a favor, how she poured her soul onto those parchments. A moment of realization occurred to her, that somewhere around relating the Christmas without Ron she forgot that she had an audience and wrote in a more personal style. She was sure her dramatics were reversed with a quick reparo and he was looking over her incredibly Gryffindor musings about the end of the war. She heard a light tap on the window as a little owl came in with an envelope pinned to its leg. She fed the owl a crisp and it waited. Of course, the message was from Severus. Of course he'd be semi-apologizing and asking to use her material. She opened the envelope and sighed.

_Meet me at Martucci's for dinner tonight at 7. Possibly awkward but not poorly thought out._

_S_

Her initial reaction involved auto-copulation suggestions, but she thought better of it and she scribbled a more reasonable reply on the back of his missive. How could he have known her sensitivity after stirring up all those memories.

_I want the red velvet cake. It will improve the conversation if there is chocolate close to hand._

_H_

She folded his note into an origami bird and sent it back with the owl.

"Red velvet cake? Wonder if they use carmine to color it." Severus flipped the note back and forth again to see how she folded it. What a swot, he thought. At least she'll listen, maybe. He sorted through his clothing and picked a black jumper and black trousers. He had to leave all the wool behind from the American summer and the cotton he ended up with wasn't black enough to suit him. At 6:30 he started on his way to the restaurant, with Hermione's parchment and a plan.

He sat on the foyer bench and waited for Hermione to arrive. 6:59 came and so did Hermione. She seemed to be dressed for the occasion, with her hair swept up in some contraption and a politically neutral blue dress that blurred the line between tasteful and tawdry. How someone could look that sexy with that much skin unexposed was a conundrum he planned to mentally explore during their meal. He briefly considered her former student status but decided that the scenery was worth the trip.

"Thank you for considering my invitation," Severus said to Hermione as he looked over to the hostess and held up two fingers. She whisked them to a table in the back corner and placed two glasses of ice water next to their menus. "Any food allergies or dietary restrictions?" Severus inquired.

"Not really restrictions, just preferences. I won't eat veal."

"Ah, socially conscious eating. May I suggest the Fettucine in white clam sauce, then?"

"You've been here before?"

"Absolutely, one can't get good Italian food in Scotland. Although I may tire of it eventually, I don't see this happening soon."

"Sounds good."

The waitress came by, took their orders and left some focaccia at the table with seasoned oil to use as a dipping sauce.

Severus began to dive into the topic of discussion. "I've read your parchments."

Hermione shrugged.

"It was a lot more detail than I was expecting, obviously. I get the impression that they weren't meant for me to read directly."

"I never wrote it down before like that. Once I got started it just happened. Everything. Again. I had no idea this would make me relive the whole thing." Hermione's shoulders slumped.

"I had no idea you had those experiences. I was so busy being not dead and avoiding everyone that I didn't really read anything for a while. And the Daily Prophet was always better for lining the phoenix cages. You really should write that book."

Hermione snorted but Severus marched on to the topic of the seminar.

"It's important that everyone gets a clear picture of how this happened with as much perspective as possible, would you agree?"

"Yes." Hermione suspiciously nodded, not knowing where he was going with this.

"What would happen if the lecture was only my perspective as a Death Eater behind enemy lines? How complete would the information be?"

"Not very, and you would have practically nothing about Harry," Hermione pointed out.

"As a matter of fact, you are probably more responsible for his continued existence than I am. What if no one heard your collective story and how you suffered directly as a result of your blood status?"

Hermione clutched her ribs, remembering Dolohov and her stint in the hospital wing.

"I'm sorry that I asked you to do this, I truly had no idea that you were still traumatized after all this time. I took this assignment for my own reasons. I lecture twice a week. I get a place to stay and a lot of free time and connections to do some research. I also get to tell the Americans how Riddle used blood status to recruit followers, which is not unlike some of the hate crime here. That was my point. Full stop."

The waitress lingered next to the table waiting for a moment to place their food, and Severus waved her to interrupt them.

"And..." Hermione proffered as she deeply inhaled her clam sauce.

"You were to be a facet of the story. Insert Harry Potter here at week four. Then I read your parchment. I had no idea. I did, but not really. There wasn't an embarrassingly revealing Pensieve to tip me off."

"I never saw that, you know," Hermione said defensively.

"Of course not, how very Hermione of you. Respectful to the end. Did you think I didn't notice you browbeating your entourage about calling me professor?"

Hermione shook her head.

"I noticed a lot of things, but not enough. Help me with your story too. It needs to be told." Severus quietly suggested.

Hermione went back to her dorm with an entire red velvet cake.


End file.
